R.I.P. Floppy Disk!

This from the BBC today. After almost 40 years of storage media dominance, the cold icy hand of death has finally reached out for the venerable floppy disk, with Sony stating it will discontinue the product in March 2011. For those of you under 25, I have included a photo. For those of you still hoping to install Windows on to a scsi or sata drive, good luck. Despite the fact that machines no longer ship with floppy drives, and despite their discontinuance, Microsoft plans to require a floppy based driver load for windows installs through 2016...

Jerry's Guitars

Found this last week. ~ROCK~ Serious props to the site creator. A great read. Click on "Jerry's Electric Guitar History". Enjoy!

Spring Break!

Hola Amigros! That's right suckers! It's your ol' buddy, Lance, commin' back atchya' with a whole new rap for 2010! Heeel yeah, boy! It's been a while since I laid it on ya', but that's no 'cuz I ain't been up to nothin'! Heeel no, boyz! Ol' Lance has hisself an old lady! Yessir! An' man is she a pistol. She keeps me on the straight an' narrow, I tell ya. Like June Carter with ol' Johnny Cash, boy! But that don't mean we don't have no fun. Heeel No, sucka! Just check out this pic of us down on Padre island last month. Am I lookin' Gooooo-ooood, or what?!?! An' jus check out that little number in the towel on my lap.

hehehehe

Ol' lance was on the nudy beach, boyz! an' that's a fact! Heel Yeah!

An' jus wait until I show you my new project up here in D-Town...

2010 man, time to ROCK!

Time warp 2012!

First - I have to give full credit to Erica for this concept.

Timewarp 2012!!, an exciting election year for sure! In a surprising burst of estrogenal energy, the entire country has voted to set up an all female presidential ticket FOR BOTH MAJOR PARTIES. In a predetermined action, the greens, libertarians, socialists, commies, Tea-bag idiots, constitutional party, and the fringe groups have elected all male candidates in a move to prove that the mainstream are completely biased slaves-to-the-corporate-dollar, and and out of touch with the rest of the country.

On the Republican ticket, (picture to the right of center)everyone's favorite neighbor from the north, Sarah Palin, has formed what can only be called a "Dynamic Duo" with the infamous Tonya Harding. Running behind the slogan "Soccer Moms and Skating Moms TOGETHER! *UNSTOPPABLE*",
this power dou has made quite a splash amongst the illiterate, the methamphetamine-addicted, and the toothless of America with their unique combination of charming winks, overdeveloped female biceps, and dubious celebrity status from past 'glories' (reference, amongst other classy tid-bits of the past, "Harding's Wedding night video" on google).

The Palin/Harding ticket has well publicized plans to "Kick Some Ace!" in November, and "Wail on those democratic bitches" in, what is described by supporters as a, "Sure-fire ass-whuppin! on election night".

Asked what he thought about the ticket, a confident Michael Steele (sporting a newer, more trendy style in a vain effort to attract young Americans to the republican Party) said, "3,6,9 damn she fine,
hopin she can sock it to me one mo time,
Get low, Get low!
To the window, to the wall... "
followed by something about "Skeet, Skeet!..." and some other unprintable things. Apparently, Lil' Jon, not friar Tuck, is running the G.O.P in 2012...

On the other side of the fence, the democrat's have countered with a mighty Clinton/Pelosi pairing, a couple of tried and true ball-busters certain to strike fear into even the toughest of foreign leaders (suck on that one, Putin!) Campaigning on the slogan, "Palin/Harding, Seriously?!", experts are predicting a brutal campaign of mud-sligning and smear-tactics, followed by an overwhelming democratic victory when the vast majority of loud and obnoxious Palin/Harding supporters fail to vote. Republican's will point to inherent inequalities in the system, but in reality, it will come down to the fact that the loudest and most vocal supporters of the Palin/Harding ticket couldn't find the local post office on election day, or were too intoxicated/medicated/tweaked to correctly spell their names.

Night Ranger @ The Palladium, Dallas, TX - 3/25/2010

Want to know if late 80's guitar rock is alive and well in America today? Well then, go catch Night Ranger. I went in joking about it, and 2 seconds into the show knew I had been mistaken. These guys kicked serious ass. The fella on the left (Mark Hammond) throws one of the best "Metal face" looks I have ever seen (including the late Randy Rhodes), and Brad Gillis(sp?) on the right just hammers that axe. The set is a 'best of' from a decade of Night Ranger and 5 or 6 years of Damn Yankees. Regardless of the era, the songs were dealt with ferocity. I had a blast. The best part, the vendor rep bought the beers all night AND I scammed a N.R. t-shirt from him as well. Unbelievable. Rock!

Grayfolded

Realead in 1995, this album was brought to my attention by good-buddy Dave who was at the Univ. of Wisco at Madison at the time. I ran into a copy up at school, and was blown away at the time. 15 years later, I finally downloaded the thing from Amazon.com yesterday. The original release was on 2 compact discs, Transitive Axis, and Mirror Ashes. This thing blows Infrared Roses out of the water. More on the album below repopsted from David Dodd's "Annoted Grateful Dead Lyrics" website.

Not exactly a cover, not exactly a recording by the Dead, are John Oswald's Grayfolded CD's. Here's a review of them by Rob Meador:

Here's the lowdown on Grayfolded:

John Oswald has been experimenting with a process he calls 'plunderphonics' for some years now. He takes music, and plays with it by transforming the various elements-- slowing things down, speeding them up, layering strange things on top of one another, etc. His several CDs (never for sale and skirting the edge of liable) have been avidly collected by people like Gans, who turned Lesh onto it. In Oswald's own words-- "Plunderphonics is the taking of familiar music and making it strage, or, in another word, new."

Lesh and Gans convinced the rest of the band to let Oswald into the vaults to plunderphonicize the Dead (then they convinced Oswald to do it-- he was reluctant at first). At first, he wanted to work with Dark Star and The Other One, but as the project went on, he realized that Dark Star was a handful, and he concentrated on that. Oswald again: "As I mentioned earlier, plunderphonics usually entails taking what seems to be normal music and making it strange. But with Dark Star, since it often is strange to begin with, the task is inevitably different. Because I've so often heard that the experience of a Dead concert has never been translated to record in a satisfying way, I decided to attempt to make that translation."

He took digital copies of about 51 Dark Stars from 1968 to 1992 (including an acoustic version!), and used them as his material. Two CDs are the result-- one 59 minutes, the other 46 minutes long. In his own words again: "With Dark Star I felt like orchestrating the Dead-- having multiple verions of the band superimposed in vertical layers, so you'd have the Grateful Dead Orchestra for the nebulous sections of the song, which would be interspersed with smaller ensembles." (The above facts and quotes taken from the CD booklet)

The result of all this is stunning. You have multiple Jerry's, sometimes playing at the same time, and sometimes in the same lead. For example, you might hear a line start with what is obviously a 1969 Jerry, and end with an obvious 1989 Jerry. The same with the rest of the band. He really captures the nuances of Dark Stars in general, and there are wondrous, surprising, and very funny things going on. I love Dark Star, and I was leery lest this be awful, but it's not. It really holds the spirit of Dark Star, and is a wonderful testament to the originality and depth of the Dead's music through the years. Highly recommended!

Shall we go?

Rosie

spinning a set the stars through which the tattered tales of axis roll about the waxen wind of never set to motion in the unbecoming round about the reason hardly matters nor the wise through which the stars were set in spin

...and sing me a song of my own...

El Tigre

Black muddy river
Roll on forever
I don't care how deep or wide
If you got another side
Roll muddy river
Roll muddy river
Black muddy river roll

Fostex 206E Mk II comes to life!

After two years (two freaking years!!) of talking about this ML TL cabinet design for the Fostex 206E driver, my monster has come to life! The design and correction circuit is heavily based on the plans outlined by Martin J King on his Quarter-Wavelength Website. I have been building speakers based on this guy's designs since Alaska, and the sound on these units is phenomenal. If you have never heard a high quality full-range driver in a proper enclosure, you are missing out; the clarity and definition are unmatched. The bass response tends to be the Achilles heel, but by utilizing some clever properties of, well, physics, the world, and magick (of course), proper bass response is assured, paired with a bourbon-mellow mid-range and crisp clear highs.

I cut the sections from 3/4" birch plywood and laminated them together. The bright sections are from 12 ply segments that I had from an earlier attempt. The rest are 5 ply segments that were in stock at Homie-D's. I thought the racing stripe offset color was pretty cool. The finish is red-mahogany stain covered in matte clear coat poly.

Update 11.21.2011 - The general dimensions of the cabinet and a description can be found here with a detailed set of plans located here.

'Mexico Slim' becomes richest man in world

Yeah - no shit - Telecommunication magnate (read scum-sucking corrupt monopolistic despot) 'Mexico Slim' beats out the weaselly Bill Gates by a fraction of a Bil to become the worlds richest man. Aye Yie Yieeee! Check it here.